


Filibuster

by CloudAtlas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Community: be_compromised, Consent Issues, F/M, Truth Spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-23 10:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13785873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: Forinkvoicesprompt:Forced honesty - truth spell magic / truth sreum science / whatever you like.“Remember when we went to Central Park Zoo?” Clint cuts in desperately. He doesn’t want to hear about Natasha being empty because she’s not she’s not she’s not.





	Filibuster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/gifts).



> Written for the be_compromised Valentine's Mini Promptathon 2018. Unbeta'd.

He’s not sure how long it will last. He hopes it doesn’t last much longer.

Natasha's voice is already starting to crack, but after three hours of nonstop talking, that’s not surprising. He’s tried to get her to drink, but she can only manage little sips before whatever-the-hell-it-is kicks back in and the words start flowing again.

They’d had no idea what it was at first; just some guy hurling out bolts of light from a cuff that looked to Thor to be from Vanaheim. His aim was shit so he wasn’t landing any shots, but then Steve got too close and Natasha, being Natasha and a better person that she would ever believe, stepped in front of him. A bolt of light went straight through her back.

There wasn’t any blood. There wasn’t much of anything. Steve had thanked her and offered her a hand and asked, “Are you okay?”

And from his perch, Clint saw it. Saw he get to her feet, brush down her hands, open her mouth.

“Yes,” she’s said, clear as a bell over the comms. “It didn’t hurt at all actually and I landed a little awkwardly but it’s hardly worth writing home about unlike last week with the Skrulls and what am I saying why can’t I stop Steve Steve I can’t stop make it stop make it stop make it stop – ”

Steve couldn’t make it stop. No one has been able to make her stop. Steve pulled out her comms so no one could hear her and then covered her mouth when she started spilling secrets like arterial blood, her eyes wide and frightened. He’d said he could still hear her mumble through the flesh of his palm.

Clint had abandoned his perch and was immediately by her side, and he hasn’t left since. 

He feels so helpless and he aches for her; Natasha, whose silences are so treasured, whose secrets so dangerous. Who fought so hard through countless, false, Natashas to be the person she is now.

All those Natashas are trying to escape now, all at once. Horrifying details Natasha never wanted to share spilling out like slit sandbags. Clint doesn’t know what to do, but he’s found that if he gives her topics – silly, frivolous ones – Natasha can latch onto them and steer herself away from secrets that could destabilise governments, ruin friendships and start wars.

He now knows more about Lancôme makeup than he ever thought he would, but even that can veer into the terrible.

“ – they gave us this lipstick that could knock people out and it was blood red, arterial red, and it suited me, you know? My colouring. And they said I was perfect, so perfect, but I was nothing, empty empty empty, with a cold wind in my head and ice in my bones because that’s useful for killers because killers don’t have to feel – ”

“Remember when we went to Central Park Zoo?” Clint cuts in desperately. He doesn’t want to hear about Natasha being empty because she’s not she’s not she’s not.

“ – there were otters.” The change of subject, even when he suggested it, is still weirdly abrupt. “You love otters, your face lights up and I loved watching you because you were so happy and I wanted to be happy like that too and you showed me tapirs with their funny noses and red pandas and those long legged dogs and you bought me a toy seal and I said it was stupid and childish but I still have it Clint, I called her снежно which is snowy in Russian and she lives on my bookshelf and I hold her when I’m sad – ”

Natasha is starting to look horrified again but can’t seem to work her way away from talking about снежно so Clint chokes out, “Otters,” because he might want to hear how Clint comforts Natasha even when he’s not there but not like this, never like this.

“ – you love otters, say they have cat feet,” she croaks out, and he has said that, he has, “little bean cat feet, and I thought we can’t have an otter but we can get a cat so you can have little bean cat feet and I can see you smile and Clint I can’t stop I want to stop I wanted to tell you properly not like this – ”

“You want a cat?”

“I want you to smile, you don’t smile enough and Steve says I don’t smile enough but you make me smile, Clint, you make me smile – ”

Natasha looks like she would be crying, if she had enough water left in her body, but it’s okay because Clint is crying for her and they’re both a mess and Clint can only manage to choke out the words, “Hitchhiker’s Guide, Nat. Quote Hitchhiker’s Guide,” because he knows she’d hate it if he let her get any further than she already has.

Natasha knows a lot of the Hitchhiker’s Guide. And the Lord of the Rings, and various Tolstoy novels and it’s only then that Clint realises that she’s been switching between Russian and English and he hadn’t noticed. And it’s only six or so hours late that he realises that most of what she’s quoting, or just dissecting or rambling about or _whatever it takes_ to keep herself to spiralling, are things he’s introduced her to; Dog Cops, Brooklyn Nine Nine, M*A*S*H, Star Trek, The Thirty Nine Steps, Poirot, Alfred Hitchcock, Bruce Springsteen, Greta Garbo films, Galaxy Quest.

Whatever weird ass thing it was runs out after twelve hours – Natasha falling silent halfway through quoting Ford Prefect – and she’s so exhausted and dehydrated that Clint simply makes her drink a pint of water and then bundles her into bed.

When she wakes up many hours later, Clint is waiting for her in the front room with a stuffed otter and a note. _You make me smile too_ , it says, and Natasha wraps him in a tight hug that says more than any mere words ever could.


End file.
